When a scientist say,"WTF=Where're the Flares?",do you think the Big One is coming?..Next Days.

Livinston and Penn did a paper on this a while back, simply it said that sunspots will vanish by 2015. It's happened before so get your poncho's
out. While we are all freezing, the world is heating up from AGW. Yep, the ideal scenario, the scientific world is both right and wrong.

No, the Big One isn't coming any time soon.
The solar regions on the near side of the Sun are small and magnetically stable. Judging from what can be seen from STEREO B things will be quite calm
for a while.

If you're curious about the comment on the chart, why don't you ask the person who created it?

In an attempt to defuse internet hysteria regarding the purported end of the world next year as the Mayan calendar long-count completes, NASA has
stated that next year's solar maximum will see solar flares which are "a problem the same way hurricanes are a problem".

That's a very big problem, then. As the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will tell you, Hurricane Katrina alone devastated
three major US cities, killing hundreds of people. The Galveston hurricane of 1900 killed thousands.

NASA-funded studies have previously warned of a "Space Katrina" flare or coronal mass ejection that would devastate modern civilisation, bringing
down power grids and frying satellites en masse. Food would rot, trains wouldn't move, traffic would be gridlocked, phones and the internet wouldn't
work, the financial markets would be devastated, planes and ships would be lost and wrecked.

But it's not all doom! This statement issued today from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, in which we are told of hurricane-like solar flares
coming, also adds reassuringly:

There simply isn't enough energy in the sun to send a killer fireball 93 million miles to destroy Earth ... even at their worst, the sun's flares
are not physically capable of destroying Earth.

But:

[Solar flares are] a problem the same way hurricanes are a problem. One can protect oneself with advance information and proper precautions. During a
hurricane watch, a homeowner can stay put ... or he can seal up the house, turn off the electronics and get out of the way.

So the planet may survive, but you may not, seems to be the message. However it may be reasonable to take some of the solar-flare doomsaying of recent
years with a pinch of salt. As NASA notes, anyone older than 11 has already lived through at least one solar maximum of the sort coming up: and
furthermore these maxima have been steadily decreasing in intensity, not increasing, over recent decades.

Some eminent solar physicists believe that in fact the Sun may be headed into a long period of inactivity in which no sunspots appear and no or very
few flares occur, perhaps lasting many decades – like the so-called Maunder Minimum seen in the 17th and 18th centuries, which was accompanied by a
"mini Ice Age" of very cold winters.

It may not be time to wrap all your electronics in tinfoil just yet. ®

A powerful flare erupted from the sun Thursday, Jan. 19, unleashing a plasma wave that may supercharge the northern lights for skywatchers in high
latitudes this weekend.

The solar flare occurred at about 11:30 am EST (1600 GMT) and touched off a massive solar explosion — known as a coronal mass ejection — aimed at
Earth, space weather experts and officials said. The charged particles from the sun explosion should reach Earth by Saturday night (Jan. 21), and
could amp up northern lights displays when they hit the upper atmosphere.

"Forecasters say strong geomagnetic storms are possible when the cloud arrives during the late hours of Jan. 21st. High-latitude (and possibly
middle-latitude) sky watchers should be alert for auroras this weekend," the skywatching website Spaceweather.com announced in an alert.

Several space telescopes recorded photos and video of the solar flare, including NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and the Solar Heliospheric
Observatory (SOHO). [Photo and video of the solar flare]

According to the Space Weather Prediction Center maintained by NOAA, Thursday's solar flare erupted from an active sunspot group called Region 1401.
Another solar hotspot, called Region 1402, is also fired off a flare, the center reported.

Auroras occur when charged particles from the sun interact with Earth's upper atmosphere, releasing visible light in the process. The particles are
funneled toward Earth's polar regions by the planet's magnetic field, with the northern auroral displays known as the aurora borealis, or northern
lights. The southern counterpart is called the aurora australis, or southern lights.

Thursday's solar flare rated as a powerful M2-class sun storm on the scale used by astronomers to measure flare strength. M-class storms are powerful,
but mid-range, types of solar flares. They fall between the weaker C-class flares and the most powerful X-class solar storms, which can pose a threat
to satellites and astronauts in orbit, cause widespread communications interference and damage infrastructure on Earth when aimed directly at the
planet.

SDO mission scientists have said that sunspot group 1401 has been unleashing solar flares almost daily as the sun's rotation slowly turned the solar
hotspot toward Earth in recent days. On Wednesday (Jan. 18), the region unleashed an M1.7-class solar flare, they said in a Twitter post.

The sun is currently in the middle of an active phase of its 11-year solar weather cycle. The current sun storm cycle, called Solar Cycle 24, is
expected to peak in 2013, NASA scientists have said.

the Sun has entered a new 'episode', therefore the past metrics and past assumptions are out the window... but basic physics will prevail

just like the DOW stock market
just like the Earth Core

we are in new territory, only a smattering of former inputs< results will behave as expected,
we are in uncharted territory with the behavior of the Sun ->
the Stock Market ->
the plate tectonics & mantle plumes of Earth (resulting in earthquakes in weird places at weird times)
will have much of the historical characteristics...but the scientists will be noting the events are on par with 500 year floods ~
~~ they just should not be happening with any regularity ! ~~ the 'new normal' is underway
but the establishment will be reluctant to say so, because of instilling fear in the populace

I heard the scientists involved in solar research knew full well that the sun is going into a solar flare hiatus and does so every so often. The world
will not end due to a solar flare or to "magnetic shift" Those things happen all the time, even to our own earth, life is barely disrupted by it.
This whole End of the World thing seems to be an on-going pseudo-crisis. I was thinking, shouldn't we actually be worried that since Jesus died when
he was thirty three, then the real time to look forward to a Second Coming would be around 2033? Or was he 36? Or did he even exist? Why aren't we
worried about Buddha coming back? Or Lao Tse? Or Mohammed? Oh, that's right, because no one had any BAD DREAMS after those people died.

Ether way no matter what happens, I do not see the end coming anytime soon, If some thing like this happens and it effects earth and the inhabitants,
I don't see it as the end but a new start for those that survive what ever happens.

I believe a massive solar flare is coming soon and have been reading threads all over ATS about them and what coincides with them? You are right we
simply do not have enough data from the Carrington event. We know communications will be sparse but what i worry about is nuclear plants going off
line and shutting down. The power grid on Earth being devastated is not something we want to think about. It would be nice to see a doomsday
television show about this but it is just ignored. How many more nuclear melt-downs do we need?

Originally posted by GRANDJINX1
I believe a massive solar flare is coming soon and have been reading threads all over ATS about them and what coincides with them? You are right we
simply do not have enough data from the Carrington event. We know communications will be sparse but what i worry about is nuclear plants going off
line and shutting down. The power grid on Earth being devastated is not something we want to think about. It would be nice to see a doomsday
television show about this but it is just ignored. How many more nuclear melt-downs do we need?

Let's deal with the 3 currently happening at Fukushima, before we add to the equation....

That's quite a leap of logic.. to assume from a few words jotted on a graph, that this means a polar shift.

Just because a scientist jots something down, doesn't mean it's the end of the world. Stop fear-mongering. Sun looks quite normal. Lack of
sunspot activity means a lack of flare activity. Go figure. Lack of sunspots is not "troubling." It happens all the time. Over billions of
years. I know some of you would love for the sun to implode.. but alas, it's probably business as usualy for the next billion years or more.

Your reaction is exactly what I expected, considering that was not even replied to you. If you cannot face any criticism on a post that is more
speculative than credible it clearly shows us you lack faith in your own capabilities of convincing us to be worried about a star which we have no
control over in the first place let alone the technology to escape its uncomprehending power.

You clearly are an enthusiast on astronomy which I can respect, your passion shows by your unnecessary patronising replies, keep in mind though that
life is short and wasting your energy to defend something that really has no relevant impact on your personal life is pointless. The universe
functions by itself and I personally think wasting precious time and resources to observe something you have no control over whilst nations struggle
to maintain economic integrity for its people is the reason enough to let it go.....

Originally posted by fleabit
That's quite a leap of logic.. to assume from a few words jotted on a graph, that this means a polar shift.

Just because a scientist jots something down, doesn't mean it's the end of the world. Stop fear-mongering. Sun looks quite normal. Lack of
sunspot activity means a lack of flare activity. Go figure. Lack of sunspots is not "troubling." It happens all the time. Over billions of
years. I know some of you would love for the sun to implode.. but alas, it's probably business as usualy for the next billion years or more.

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